To: Andrew H who wrote (11554 ) 11/21/1997 2:09:00 PM From: Flagrante Delictu Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Andy, >> You've got it Bernie. That's the problem alright. No maybes about it.<< If you recall, Henry mentioned that Susan Atkins was one of 5 Lgnd officials at the OPCO conference. I was also in attendance at that conference. Susan is absolutely correct in that it was absolutely not mentioned that LGND would ANNOUNCE the selection of a compound within 2 weeks of the closing of the Lilly deal. Rather, what was mentioned was that if they selected a compound, they should be able to do so within a couple of weeks of getting their chance to do so. A perspicatious reporter mentioned at the breakout session that the agreement indicated the product would be in LGND's area of interest & not Lilly's. Since cancer was a major interest of LGND as well as an interest of Lilly,how could that be reconciled? It was shortly thereafter that the perspicatious reporter learned that if a compound was selected it would be a cancer product whose probable annual sales would not be large enough to excite Lilly, but would, with $50 million in annual sales be of significant interest to Lgnd . It was even illustrated that such a compound would have 80% gross margins & after paying a royalty of 10% to Lilly, there would be enough left to interest LGND. This reporter then thought to himself that it was not implausible that such a compound might be selected. Since I think said reporter knows how to read tea leaves, I hereby offer to bet you a bottle of Dom Perignon that LGND selects a compound from Lilly . This same perspicatious reporter noticed that the LGND executives did not go home right after they finished enlightening the conference goers. Instead they hung around for several days in the media capitol of the world. Does it seem so improbable that they might have been interviewed by several of the business reporters that inhabit New York City? One who chose to speculate might even envision that they would have relished an opportunity to be interviewed by the journal of record in the most important city in the world. And,hopefully, they were also interviewed by the leading financial periodical of at least one other continent. Such periodicals staff in N.Y.C. Unfortunately, your wheedling out of Henry on this thread of the name of Business Week Online as a publication which might have interviewed LGND may have deprived us of the pleasure of finding out how highly they thought of LGND. As tonyt pointed out, that publication has had prior troubles with the leaking of articles that were soon to be published, and may now be reluctant to publish after you were publically notified about the possibility. Where did you get the idea that LGND commited at the OPCO conference to announce the selection of a Lilly compound within 2 weeks?Bernie.
